Japan's world-leading chip materials makers risk being acquired

TOKYO -- Japanese makers of semiconductor materials, owners of a combined 50% share of the global market, are nevertheless cowering while staring up at an encroaching wave of industrial consolidation.

Many Japanese players occupying this crucial link of the chip supply chain are relatively small, juicy targets for foreign companies. But Japan Inc. covets them for their outsized potential to bolster the rebuilding of the nation's semiconductor industry.